


By Needle, Crown and Crook

by Gothiiknight



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, M/M, Multi, and insomnia as it's own particular island, and some Galahd, and this ship literally only exists in two heads, despite the fact that this is all the story of a relationship basically, featuring lots of Cavaugh, featuring lots of politics, more character study than romance, no war - no prophecy - lucis is actually a kingdom the size of a continent, poor clarus is vaguely befuddled and more than a little confused, this is a wildly self indulgent fic and world, though mostly as a backdrop, tredd is a flirt, with differing cultures across the board
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 05:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19387258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gothiiknight/pseuds/Gothiiknight
Summary: The Drautos and Furia clans have been feuding for as long as anyone can remember, though at least there hasn't been outright war in the last few centuries. The people of Galahd have never particularly understood Insomnia, let alone the rest of the mainland. Somehow, out of that, three people come together through Council meetings -- and make something that lasts.





	1. A girl with red hair (Titus)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dark_Puck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_Puck/gifts).



> A lot of the worldbuilding here has been done with Dark_Puck. Which shouldn't surprise anyone that has been reading my other XV fics. Aisling is actually hers, as are the other Furia siblings.
> 
> And it should be noted that this version of Galahd was in very large part inspired by notavodkashot and all their fics.

The first time Titus Drautos ever met a Furia in person, he didn't know it for about an hour. He was twenty three and he'd never been out to Insomnia before, never even stepped foot in a  _ city _ before; he’d skipped out on following cousin Ian to Lestallum a few years back. And it wasn't like Drautos' had reason to hike out the capital much. 

They might be one of the oldest families in Cavaugh.  _ The _ oldest, according to everyone that was anyone. But they'd never been awarded a seat on the Council like most of the eldest or the largest of the clans. Like the Titan's damned Furias, or the Haes, or the Donnach.

Not that they'd take one now, if it was offered. Titus couldn’t imagine his mother perching in one of the citadel’s stone chairs. Not as long as one of  _ them _ held a seat. And their clan never needed much from Insomnia anyways most years. They were shepherds. 

They'd  _ been  _ shepherds when Titan first handed man a crook, from sheep to cattle to the garula they now looked over. They'd been shepherds when Solheim fell. They'd been shepherds when the Fierce King and the Conqueror King and the Warrior King and all the rest marched out across Cavaugh or Leide or Duscae to plant the flag of Lucis and bring them into the Crystal's light as was proper. They'd  _ be _ shepherds till the sun guttered out. And that was the way of things.

Titus himself was only there because some city folk had purchased the land next door and weren't handling it right. It was causing problems for the whole area and nobody quite knew who to talk to about it. So Titus had volunteered. He was good with people and could spot a lie and he had a more even temper than his mother, or any of his older siblings. He was the family's clever wee lad, he'd sort it out, and the clan still had right of petition, anyways. Wouldn’t be that much trouble.

He hadn't at all known what he was in for, though, coming into a place with buildings that stabbed the sky and with people that were next door neighbors really but...

Well. Titus came riding in Camdyn Grann's truck, whose great grandfather had ran off around the world with Titus' great grand- _ uncle _ Leith; who'd saved Leith's life a half dozen times and helped him get through that whole strange mess with the honeysuckle and Aunt Aileas. Camdyn Grann who's mother had embroidered tiny garula onto Titus' baby blankets, along with those of all his older siblings, because neither of his parents were much a hand at embroidery. Camdyn Grann who'd never really been a friend in school, but Titus had taken a punch for him when they were seventeen and Camdyn was sweet on Cousin Leisa. 

Titus knew where he stood with Camdyn, even after he'd gotten into a fist fight with the man a few years later when he thought he'd broken Leisa's heart. And when he’d shared a beer with him a month later, when they all found out Leisa and Camdyn's sister were getting married. They were family. And he could trace back just about half of Cavaugh with the same kind of intensity, through a hundred folk songs and twice that many stories around fires and growing up, and schoolyard gossip. Through feuds like the way the Granns hated the Haes for that tumble at the First Fair, and the enmity between Furia and Drautos that was so old by now villages were built along the fault lines. Steeped to its heart in one stolen sheep and a pilfered bundle of sticks the Drautos had needed one too cold winter. The Furia had been mostly smiths, even back then. They always had a little firewood, even when they were too selfish to share it.

Getting out of Camdyn's old truck and walking through the Citadel gates, TItus didn't know anything like that. Who’d made them? Whose family got hurt building up these walls, what sort of deal had been struck for the costs? Nobody was wearing proper colors, everyone was dressed a bit strange with too much black and too many buttons, and the guards were giving him the hardest looks like he was some sort thief. Nothing made any sort of sense at all as he sort of vaguely tried to find the Council chambers.

Nothing, until he found  _ her _ . She was a taste of home. About his age, with a shock of red hair and sensible clothes and broad shoulders, if made very fine still. He knew enough of her by the way about her to know she was all Cavaugh down to her sensible boots, even if he didn't know her clan or her name and he wouldn't even have known how to ask in this place. She was solid, and couldn't have been more than eight or nine inches shorter than him, broad and steady and confident in a way he didn't at all feel.

He'd asked her, felt like he was fumbling, if she knew where the Council met -- he had a petition to make. And she'd smiled at him, like he weren't an idiot that stumbled straight out of a pasture and into the city and like he wasn’t counting the minutes till he could get home. She told him just where to go.

Forty five minutes later he found himself walking out before the Council and staring at the red haired girl named Aisling Furia as she embroidered something, settled into the highback chair of her family's seat. It was there in an inoffensive row with the other clan seats, right between the Leiden Four off to the left and the Duscaean seats still awarded from the Conquest on the right. She winked at him, as he was introduced.

And he spoke. A few Insomnians laughed at him, tried to dismiss him, but she and a few others spoke to the importance of pasturing, agreeing with him. With  _ him.  _ She asked smart questions too, and it was easy to tell she paid far more attention than anyone else acknowledged. People didn't seem to pay much attention to her, but she had a sharp wit and as far as he could tell didn't miss a single thing; knitting or not.

Being listened to was strange, effecting _change_ like this was strange. There was a power to it that he hadn’t thought of before, arguing with these grand lords and councilors. The issue was resolved in his family’s favor. And he couldn’t help thinking that this wasn’t the worst sort of thing for a man to do, wasn’t so different than the work he’d grown up with. Just handling people, instead of beasts. And it could be useful work. 

After the meeting, as he came away happy with all his family needed and the seeds of an idea, he sought her out. He smiled, and bowed his head. And told her-

"Don't think I'll forget the first person who ever did agree with me in this damn city's a Furia. If that doesn't say something, not sure what would. Was unexpectedly nice to meet you. Thank you, again," he said it as polite as he could, before he left, with warmth in his voice and more a sense of purpose than he’d had when he left.

Sometimes he thought about whether he’d have felt as confident, if he’d found the chambers on his own, and he never could decide.

Their families had positively hated each other for the last five or six hundred years at the very least. Titus knew full well you couldn't trust a Furia. They didn't care none at all for living things, just metal and crafts. And craft was all good and all, vital. But you wouldn't want to bed anyone with a heart made of sewing needles, now would you, Titus? He could hear half his relatives lecturing him as he left.

He knew those things, in the way anyone could know them when they’d grown with them, when the lessons were learned in the crib. But he'd seen her and he'd heard _her_. And he was true to his word, even if he wouldn't set foot anywhere near her again for years to come.


	2. One sheep, white of wool (Luche)

"And lastly, Clan Drautos would like it recorded for the Council that it is still owed one grown ram by Clan Furia. White of wool. As heavy as a man," Titus Drautos said in a thick, lazy brogue before closing the leatherbound journal he'd been looking at with exaggerated care.

Luche thought the man looked vaguely like he was standing at attention, but he only acknowledged that distantly. The way he thought the older man looked annoyingly handsome, or that he was really quite tall. He might have thought more on all of those things -- if the atmosphere in the room hadn't suddenly changed.

It was easy to watch them, from his place in Galahd's seat. The solitary seat afforded to the islands, given to whoever the hell the Glahdians bothered to send when they didn't have anyone wearing the lightning crown. Which, was most of the time. There hadn’t been a Prince of Storms in a century. Lately, it'd been him, he’d volunteered to help the last poor sap, and they’d just handed him the seat, thought he’d done well. He imagined it'd be him for a long while. He handled Insomnia better than most of his people, which made him rankled and proud, all at once. 

There were enough rumors about how he was barely a ‘real’ Galahdian as it was, with how little stock he had in the six. In their patron, especially. He refused to swear by Ramuh, and did not pray. And he wasn’t nearly as wild, nearly as defiant, as most everyone else was.

By them he meant everyone really. Everyone that wasn't Isomnian, himself, or Crowe. His adopted sister had been standing behind him like some sort of guard, and as the tension suddenly ratched up like air pressure in a lightning storm, she leaned over his shoulder; one hand holding herself up on the arm of his chair.

"What the fuck," she whispered, and really, he had to agree.

TItus was there as some sort of envoy for the lesser clans of Cavaugh, forgotten families, and tiny villages. Apparently the man had spent the last four or five years earning people's trust, gathering them all together, so he could present their needs and claims to the Council in a show of unity. Luche’d thought it was a good idea when he heard it. And he still did. Everyone had seemed to generally agree, his countrymen had even seemed very supportive.

Even the redheaded man about Luche's age, Tredd, who'd flirted with him last session and had been ignoring Titus in favor of fiddling with a knife of all things, had seemed approving, if amused for some reason. He hadn’t gotten to know Tredd well, yet. Him and his siblings shared the seat, apparently, though it belonged to their mother. The Furia didn't look amused, now, though. There was a fire in his eyes, and a set to his lips, as he leaned back and kicked his feet up onto the council table in front of him. 

Luche could hear Crowe’s huff of approval in his ear and pursed his lips, watching. Trying to understand.

The Leiden Four, wardens of each direction in the desert of Leide, elected in a byzantine process Luche was fairly sure only they understood, had gone completely still as soon as Titus finished speaking. The Duscaean land lieges had started muttering amongst themselves immediately. The Cleignans looked vaguely nervous, suddenly tense. 

The reaction of the clans was even stranger. Two of their representatives looked angry at Titus, another was smirking, and three looked somewhere between thoughtful and terribly amused. Glancing at his end of the chamber, Luche just saw Insomnians with furrowed brows and abject confusion painted on their faces. The King looked amused, though just as lost as anyone else.

Finally, Lord Amacitia cleared his throat, preparing to thank and dismiss Titus, probably.

"What in the Archaean's name would you even  _ do _ with a sheep, garula-boy? Clan Drautos aint' raised sheep in four hundred years," Tredd Furia drawled, glaring at Titus Drautos and talking to him as if the man wasn't ten years older at least and smiling, strangely enough, despite the heat in his voice.

"I'd make a cup from it's skull and raise a toast to rust," Titus answered back almost immediately, his own lip quirking up and Luche had to bite down on his lip to suppress a snicker. That he got, he’d heard Tredd talk about being a smith, rust, metal. There was animosity here, but- he still didn’t understand. "And if we don't have any sheep it's cause Furias stole them all. A furia'd steal the shoes off your feet if they could trade it for ore, everyone knows."

One of the other clan representatives nodded, making a sound in agreement, and the tension from that side of the room was very suddenly bleeding out as the two shot insults back and forth. Bleeding out of them right as it was bleeding  _ in _ on the Insomnian side.

“Excuse me, that was Iakob’s line.  _ My _ line gave up sheep-stealing for cattle-rustling," Tredd fired back, and now there wasn't any glaring in the way he looked at Titus only a sort of happy aggression. 

Titus was smirking back and-

Luche found himself rather disappointed that Lord Amacitia took the time to sternly cut their argument off to begin addressing the many grievances Titus had brought to the table. The Galahdian, personally, could have done with a great deal more of that very appealing expression on the older man's face.

And all of that had been fascinating, even if he didn’t quite get why they were talking about a single sheep, or toasting to each other’s ruination. Part of him was envious, honestly, how at ease both men were in their own skin. In their own connection to their people, alien as it was to him.

But he supposed the island ways would be strange to them, as well.

He and Crowe whispered back and forth as the session continued, conferring privately over the proposed responses to each entreaty, proposition, or grievance and discussing what they'd learned. Galahd mostly dealt with Insomnia, not any of the other far flung corners of the Lucian Kingdom -- and he realized for the first time, how little they really grasped about the rest of the mainland.

It was probably time to remedy that. Especially if he was going to catch himself staring at large politically minded shepherds with strong jaws. Might as well put his fascination to good use.


	3. A pair of scarves (Aisling)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we go, the first of the two Aisling viewpoint chapters. She's quiet, a bit sharper and fiercer than most people take her for, and fairly proud of being a seamstress and a craftswoman and part time councilor. Also this is approximately where I realized this would be like at least a thousand words longer than I meant it to be.

Eight years to the day since she'd given him directions and winked at him from across the council chambers. Almost six month since he'd sent a small note home with her brother that told her she'd been missed and that charm apparently didn't run in her family, just in her. Aisling Furia handed Titus Drautos a hand knitted scarf in his clan's colors, watching as his face twisted like she'd just hung the moon and he hadn't quite caught the trick of it. 

It rather suited him, she thought. That quiet wonder, the politics, even the years. All of it really. It gave him a steadiness, a depth, like one of those damn beasts his family handled. Something he’d lacked a bit the last time they’d met. 

Instead of giving him any chance at recovering she walked over to the pretty blonde boy they’d each befriended as they caught him staring. Well, staring and talking. With her, and her siblings when it was their day in the clan seat, or Titus after his now weekly visits with the Council. 

Luche wouldn't appreciate being called a boy, even if he was her little brother’s age. She thought everything about him even more impressive considering that, though. Luche Lazarus was a man just turning nineteen and he was here representing his home. Fighting daily to have their ways respected, their voices heard. From what she could tell, he didn’t precisely enjoy it either.

Just found it necessary. 

And she respected that, too. The political equivalent of darning socks. And from what she could tell he did it with an unsettling competence for one so young. He and his little wild sister too, when she filled in for him. Though mostly she stalled for when he returned, driving people around in circles with an ease Aisling admired. Now  _ she _ was one to keep an eye on, she’d take to Tredd like gasoline to a match. And the girl’s brother always seemed relieved, of all things, despite the chaos they could wreak.

He was a strange one, pretty and polished, hair slicked back instead of in the usual braids, and he’d been making an effort to understand Cavaugh, too. Not just getting to know them. Approaching their family, Titus, even a few of the other clans, about their ways. More than most people in the big city did, for all Insomnia was supposed to be  _ in _ Cavaugh. The massive city had never truly been a part of it. It was its own domain and had been since the Fall.

He shared stories too, didn’t just listen to them.  _ They _ were oddities all themselves, all fable and abstract. About boys that chased coeurls and girls that taught the trees to grow and grandmothers that shouted Ramuh down into a quiet day for her last walk. The tales didn’t have names or colors, families tied to them thicker than stone. Like they could belong to everyone in the same way. She found it fascinating, if bizarre, and far more interesting than the chronicles of kings and shields and noble companions that were thick on the ground in the capital.

Luche smiled as she stepped up to his seat, turning from the wild sister at his side and giving her his complete attention. Like he always did, she realized. A habit most of their colleagues didn’t share for the quietest of the Furia heirs, the woman liked to knit and liked to sew and they so often dismissed. 

She didn't quite get the thrill, the heat, she did when talking with Titus. There'd been a chemistry there even when they were young. But there was something. There were  _ sparks _ , the hint of a pretty path for needle and thread to follow; she liked that smile of his, when he wasn’t smirking like was trying to cut glass, and when his eyes weren’t drowning in-

Aisling wasn’t even sure what it was really. Except that there was something that rose up in him sometimes, like he couldn’t make it to the surface and he was gasping for breath just standing there. 

Titus looked at them both like they were the reasons magic existed, like they’d pulled order out of the chaos all around them. And he looked at Titus like he was dry land as he floundered. It made  _ her _ want to see just how he could look at her, it made her want to throw him a rope to guide him to safety.

A rope. Or in this case, a scarf. Aisling opened her satchel again, reaching into it and pulling out the knitted length of fabric. Deep Galahd-green scored with jagged streaks of white-blue, thread impersonating lightning. “The winters here are colder, Luche. Though probably a bit less wet. Thought you might like this. And anyways,” she smirked a little, the expression small and wicked on her soft features as she leaned in. “Thought you might like matching with Titus.”

She glanced over her shoulder, letting herself look at the large man they both obviously held affection for, who’d already looped his own garment around his neck. A smooth gradient of Drautos colors. It looked well on him and she didn’t bother to suppress the satisfaction that filled her as she saw it. Or as she turned back to see Luche watching the taller man as well, draping the scarf over his shoulders as he accepted it from her. His cheeks were red and she couldn’t quite keep herself from grinning.

Though she might have been able to, if she tried.

“I-Thank you, thank you Miss-” Luche stopped, that blush spreading to his neck as she gave him a particularly hard look. There were three other Miss Furias the man regularly saw. They’d talked about this. He never seemed to know when to be formal and when not to be, honestly. She wondered if things were so terribly different in Galahd. “-Aisling. I’ll treasure it. You didn’t have to make me anything you know. Not just because-”

He gestured vaguely towards Titus, his expression sheepish, and this time she didn’t even think about helping herself or stopping herself. She reached out, touching the younger man’s cheek with her hand fondly. “I made you a scarf because I wanted you to have it. He’s a great big beast of a man already, half of the clans look at him with stars in their eyes, deserved or not. He doesn’t need us to either, dear. This isn’t about him, I can’t give you one of those big storms you have back home, but I can give you a scarf to remember them. To help the memories keep between visits. We’re friends, at the very least, I’d like to think.”

Luche stared at her, gone very still. His expression was dazed as her hand dropped, adjusting the scarf slightly so it fell evenly on him. When he smiled, it was soft, a barely there blur across his lips. All tenderness. And she felt that warmth coiling inside her. Well, that was how he’d look at her.

Like he was a penny on the road, and she’d saved him from the dust. 

There were worse things than a sweet young man to keep in her pocket, even if she was  _ not  _ looking forward to what her siblings would say about her taste in men. Apparently it ran towards slick Galahdian boys and oversized Drautos giants, both with far too much invested in politics for anyone sane. 

When Luche spoke again, he reached up to squeeze her hand before letting them both fall.

“We most certainly are. I’ll wear it often, and think of you. I’m sure we both will. There are very few people whose company I enjoy as much as yours, Aisling.”

They talked for a few more minutes, before parting ways with plans to have dinner the next week, and possibly dinner with Titus too the week after that. Her eyes were bright when she caught Titus watching them as she walked away. No hints of jealousy, that was good. Triads and broader relationships weren’t unheard of back home, her sister Siobhan was chasing a pair of girls at the moment herself, but she wasn’t sure how the Drautos handled them. 

Apparently well enough, by the sweetness she saw there.

Like she’d hung the moon and the stars  _ both _ , and it didn’t matter at all how she’d done it. She could get used to that sort of look too.

Aisling winked at him again, before sweeping out.


	4. And gifts to match (Titus)

Titus hadn’t expected it to be like this, something for stories. Something that tasted of decision as soon as they started down the path. Slowly rising heat caused by notes passed to their siblings when they weren’t at a meeting, phone calls when they could manage it, dinners in pairs and as a trio. Moments snatched and borrowed. 

To quite a few people, it probably seemed rather tame, no matter how much it altered his world down to the foundations. To the fundament. His sisters both teased him about it. 

Daily.

Well they’d been teasing him about a  _ lot _ , not least for falling for a Furia and some exotic island lord-that-wasn't. They were even giving him time before breaking it to the rest of the family. Letting him see just how serious it might be. Him, his Galahdian, and Aisling.

It was serious, already, but he didn’t know how to say that yet. Didn’t want to impose how serious it felt to him on Aisling or Luche.

None of it seemed tame to him though, no matter how Tamora and Rhea laughed and elbowed him and chided him for not knowing yet just how hot a Furia girl burnt in bed . The last few months had all been remarkably charged. Slow moving, perhaps, but there was intensity to that. A deliberateness to everything they did. Tectonic plates and deep currents, large masses aligning. Even in a slow dance, breath could run out, could catch, hearts could stop. Last week he’d kissed Luche for the first time, Aisling he’d kissed nearly a month before that.

It was rather difficult to imagine kissing anyone but the two of them, now. He'd happily be done with all that, with kissing or longing or wanting anyone else. Titus rather hoped that part of his life was quite done.

Kissing them felt the same way that first speech in front of the council had, in retrospect. The end of everything before it, and the start of everything after.

Aisling kissed like her craft. Like he was her thread and she the needle and the cloth itself was the kiss they made, fitting against him steady and strong. His little fury, who blushed when he called her that and liked the way he was large enough to make her feel dainty. Who was strong and graceful and guided him through, who was everything good in her Clan and their people and quite a bit of the bad. Burning and stubborn and sure in that way that lead to shipwrecks or saved folks from them, all by the flip of a coin; she lead him by the hand or by hers in his hair.

Luche kissed like he couldn’t help but put the whole of himself, in every single thing he did. Like he couldn’t so much as trip without committing himself to it completely. He kissed like an agnostic leader from an openly theocratic group of islands. Like he was finding faith in between them, in the compacts made between hearts. Who refused to bow to his own god but bowed to everything his God believed in. Like a man afraid the storms didn't sing in his chest even though he bled judgement and justice and ached for his people, forever fearing he wasn't enough. Not wild enough for their wild hearts, too ready to act an Insomnian, to do whatever it took to get them what they deserved. He kissed with defiance and reverence until he melted against Titus' body and simply let himself  _ feel _ .

Truthfully, if he hadn't already been resolved to give them the gifts he'd been working on, the kisses would have set him on the same course all on their own. They held too much for him, they  _ were _ too much to him.

As it was he knew they'd all be busy the next few weeks. The Furias were dedicating a new forge all for Tredd's own. Luche had a visit scheduled back to the islands, which hadn’t happened in a while since they’d been trusting him on his own more, which Titus was glad to see. The man deserved it. Even Titus had a meeting of clans to lead. He'd have liked privacy, but he’d learned to do mostly without, and so he'd brought his presents up to the citadel and called the pair of them over as the session ended. 

He'd gotten used to ignoring the stares, every flavor of them, as they courted each other. From the Insomnians finding their arrangement confusing and indecorous, to their fellow Cavaughians who knew just how terribly it could all go between their families. To Crowe and Tredd, who flirted and argued with their siblings' significant others in turn when they weren't busy egging each other on or terrorizing the court.

He did his best to ignore them now, as Luche smiled and tried to peek in the bags he'd brought and Aisling kissed his cheek. 

"These aren't just because of the scarves, I hope you know. I wanted to make you something, something from me. And courting gifts are common back home, Luche. Always something from the herd for a Drautos. Though Tamora helped me some, she's better with buttons. Stitchwork’s all mine, I can mend and make a garment, even if embroidery is mostly beyond me," he rumbled, finally just handing over the bags. 

In each was a carefully made leather long coat, cut from Garula hide and dyed black away from the drabber grey it usually took on. The stitching was in deep red for Aisling, and the same lightning white as his scarf for Luche. They were lined with wool and the buttons were ivory carved to suit them. Coeurls seated with folded paws for Luche’s, proper and solemn. Crossed hammer and needle for Aisling, with a single button engraved with the horns of Ifrit on the interior; discrete but respectful of the open secret of the Furia’s faith in the Infernian. 

Each lapel held a shepherd's crooks in stitches, black thread on black leather. His quiet mark. One he'd hoped wasn't too presumptuous. They were courting gifts after all. 

He waited, as they pulled them out, hands folded behind him, face thankfully as impassive as it usually was. Well, he’d always been told it was impassive, but both of them had an unsettling ability to read him despite the fact. 

They were quiet for a longer stretch than he’d like, Aisling running fingers over the stitching and nodding to herself in seeming approval, and Luche looking up at him as he slowly slid it on.

Their thanks, when it came, was rather more exuberant than was probably appropriate for the Council chambers. Lord Amacitia himself seemed rather conflicted as he looked on while Luche clutched him tight and as Aisling outright kissed him, tugging him down to her level with a barely muffled growl in her throat. A demand that he  _ tell _ her before revealing he could actually do something useful next time. 

The scolding only made him smile. He was the youngest son of a herding family, and one of the smaller Drautos boys at six and a half feet. He thought it rather obvious he’d have learned at least a bit of leatherworking over the years. Glancing over their shoulders, he spied Lord Amacitia still watching. He had no idea why his doing something as simple as smiling at his pair could make the man blush. Clarus Amicitia always seemed rather stoic and a bit grim.

Though the heat in the man’s cheeks  _ might  _ be thanks to something that Tredd and Crowe were saying. Both younger siblings had come in as other councilors left, and immediately taken up their new hobby of heckling the Lord Shield, flanking him on either side and smirking like they’d just won a prize. Tredd in particular seemed to treasure flustering the man.

Titus found it amusing, more than a little, and bowed very slightly to the man; still forcing himself to ignore the other looks in the room. It wasn’t hard, he was absorbed in the fact that Aisling and Luche were both wearing the jackets he’d made them. That they looked well and fit right. That they’d keep the elements off and keep them warm and safe and those that saw them would know they were cared for. That they were loved.

A month and a half later found him ignoring the rest of the council again as he spoke with Aisling about having her brother make him a knife, whether his commission would be well received or not. Their families were still tense after all. 

Luche’d only been back a few days and they both were and weren’t surprised as he pulled them away and guided them to walk in one of the Citadel’s gardens.

He always seemed to care a little more about the collective gaze falling on their shoulders, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with the attention. Titus didn’t mind, it was easy to go along with when required. Relationships were complicated, being three meant more pieces together. And they  _ were _ public figures.

Luche walked between them through the flowers, clutching something in his hands as he apparently sought the right words. And failed to find them. Finally, he just held up his offering. 

A pair of beaded bracelets, one for each of them.

“These are- To my people, beads have a certain significance. We receive them in devotion to the Fulgarian. So beaded bracelets. These aren’t sacred beads. I don’t accept them myself. I keep faith with my people, not our god. But still, the giving of any beads is a statement of intent. These were carved from a tree in my village, I made them. They’re a little crude, but. Given your gifts. It seemed,” he struggled to find a word, his voice hushed, the words stilted. Neither of them were very good at this, explaining their emotions. “It seemed appropriate.

Titus slipped his on with a smile and a quirked brow. “Don’t much need fancy beads, these suit a shepherd’s boy just fine,” he said, examining them with pride as he heard Aisling commenting how they weren’t crude at all and asking about the wood.

He tuned her out without meaning to, rubbing the pad of his thumb over one of the beads. He supposed when people saw him, with bracelet and scarf, walking with two people he loved-

They’d know he was cared for, too. 


	5. A crown (Luche)

His people wanted to crown him.

They wanted to crown him Prince of the Storm, Lord of Galahd.

They wanted to give him  _ lightning’s  _ crown and show the world their trust, walking symbol of the islands and their god, and expected Ramuh might approve.

Luche was fairly certain he was going to die from it. Though he hadn’t confided  _ that  _ to anyone but Crowe. She’d scoffed, of course. 

She scoffed at everything. She was the islands down to her bones, down to her blood, even the way she worshiped the Infernian right beside Fulgarian somehow smacked of Galahd. 

His sister was wildness and scorn and respect with a scoff and her feet planted beside you. She was the lightning flash of the moment and a pride beyond status. She was a hunger after justice and rightness and he was fairly certain she’d never bent once in her life. 

He bent as needed on almost everything. He didn’t care about his pride, or braids, or beads, or the Fulgarian. He cared about justice, about caring for his people, wild as they were. About these few things that were his and he would not surrender. He cared about their beaches and their jungles and keeping the rest of Lucis from turning them into some tourist destination. He cared about things that mattered nothing to him, because they mattered to  _ them _ . He cared about duty and judgement and doing right by all that came before and all that were now and all that would be.

And his people had always looked at him strangely, for how he observed Insomnian courtesies, for how his mind worked, for the tiniest ways he stood apart. He wasn’t sure if this all wasn’t some sort of joke, in truth. They’d trusted him enough to stand for them in the city, but they all hated the city, and half resented the Crystal Kings. But that didn’t matter.

They’d assembled, they’d argued, they’d called for his name. He’d glared at them, argued back for three days that he wasn’t right, that he  _ couldn’t  _ be right. That he wouldn’t change, he’d never  _ believe _ like they wanted, like they needed.

The islands ignored him. 

Which, really, was a great start.

Each had voted. And they’d asked him if he’d take the crown. A  _ real  _ Galahdian, he was sure, would’ve told them to fuck off. Would have told them he didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.

Hadn’t he served them well enough these last years? Hadn’t he earned their trust on his own. He’d found something with Titus and Aisling, he didn’t want to lose them. Didn’t want them to lose him. 

But he’d gritted his teeth and told them he would serve, anyways. Luche had promised himself he’d do what the islands needed. He just hoped the Old Man’s judgement wouldn’t be too harsh.

About the only good part of this whole debacle was that Titus and Aisling had finally come to see Galahd. To join him and his people as they walked up the highest peak, and as Crowe took ink to his skin. Though even their arrival had nearly given him a heart attack when a beastie had come close to their procession and charged for his mainlander loves.

Everyone had scattered except Titus. He’d stepped forward, grabbed the creature that looked somewhere between a frog and a rabbit and a ram; just twice the size of a horse. He’d grabbed it by the horns and twisted, turning its momentum and driving it down into the ground.

Everytime it’d lurched up, he’d done it again, with a stern expression on his face. He’d repeated as needed until the beast just lay there panting, the wildness worn out of it for a while. When he let it up, it lumbered away. Titus nodded once, dusted his hands off, and started walking forward again as if nobody was staring.

He’d gotten good at that. Or maybe he always had been. Luche wasn’t even sure he recognized it when people were staring at him anymore. Whether it was with loyalty or scorn. Or if it was half a hundred Galahdians suddenly approving.  _ This _ man might be a fitting consort for a man they’d crown their Prince.

Aisling, too, got those grudging looks of admiration. She who’d looked startled but never flinched as Titus handled the creature. And who was the first, after the large shepherd they both loved, to start moving again. 

As they took back to the path Luche had shared a look with Aisling. Something all fire and lightning and the promise that they’d be remembering this moment when the day was done. They’d remember the strength in his arms and that surety and they’d happily shower him with their appreciation. At length.

And they  _ did _ , when they made camp at the summit. They showed Titus just how much they appreciated him. Then the pair showed Luche the same. They made him feel strange things as they told him he deserved this recognition. And then they’d worn him out, till he forgot to be afraid or angry or anything but satisfied and ready.

It was overcast the next day as he walked into the pavilion just before dawn. Crowe was already waiting for him, mixing sacred ink together from ingredients sent from each island, whispering prayers at them. 

Her job to crown him, her job to uncrown him if it came to it. To end him. She was the only one he’d let do it, and she was the only one  _ she’d  _ let do it. He was grateful that it hadn’t even been a discussion. Of course they’d want to start this together, before anybody else could see.

Well, nobody else but his loves. Titus and Aisling had followed him quietly. Theyarrived just as he stripped his shirt, and said nothing. Like he needed them to. Luche settled in front of Crowe.

“Guessing you don’t wanna confess anything or talk to the Old Man before we start this?” Crowe asked, flip, as she rubbed his skin down with a wet rag, cleaning him thoroughly.

Luche snorted. “Screw him. I’m not doing this for him. If loving our people. If wanting what’s right for them isn’t enough-” the blonde sneered, voice cut off as she slapped the back of his head. He snorted.

“Heard it before. Still think you’re a dumbass,” she said curtly, before kissing where she’d hit. Her lips moved in what he was sure was a prayer.   
  
That more than anything made him want to pause, as he realized for the first time that Crowe might be scared too, even if she didn’t show it. Never showed it. She’d go to her death snarling and smirking, or entirely calm, some day. Never showing a flicker of dread.

He tried to think of something to say as she started to work, needle piercing flesh. But it hurt more than it should hurt, than he thought it  _ could  _ hurt. 

He hissed, and his lovers watched, and his sister worked, and he made no other sounds. He would not give them up. Not when the tears came as she worked the tattoo around his throat. Not when the hallucinations started, as she spread it over his shoulders. Not when he felt a Presence rising as she worked. The Fulgarian’s attention. His hallowed judgement.

Luche Lazarus watched the islands be settled, as the ink marked him. Watched agreements be made with the Fulgarian. He watched a hundred generations living and dying and dreaming and dancing all for Him and with  _ him _ and Luche held onto the idea that he did not care by the skin of his teeth. Even he had to admit their was a majesty to it, a beauty.

It just wasn’t one he accepted into himself.

His work would not be for Him. Would never be for  _ him _ . Luche wouldn’t let that go, he didn’t care what the astral showed him, he didn’t care if he died for it. In this one thing he wouldn’t bend. If he was their Prince he would be Galahd’s prince. He would belong to them and to his loves and he would hold onto them through storm and fury and pain and death and he didn’t care. He would not give.

Somewhere he felt approval rushing through him, and he did not care for that either.

It took fourteen hours. 

Around his neck, over his shoulders, a jagged black line down his spine and down his chest. Luche never noticed anyone else watching. He barely noticed Crowe after a while, when the pain from ink dissolved as his blood came alive with it’s own pain. As lightning took over. As he felt himself spread between clouds, as he felt the god laugh at him. He didn’t care that it wasn’t cruel.

Luche snarled and made no sounds, he snarled and defied even though the astral did not speak to him. He snarled and didn’t cry or beg or demand. Just held to himself, furiously, as he felt eyes older than mountains and older than people, older than the chain of seasons, fall on him with an impossible weight.

Impossible, and pointless.

_ They  _ weighed more. Crowe, who’d been by his side since she was three, her parents dead, her village convinced she was a witch. Titus, who gathered his people and looked beyond feuds and called himself a shepherd with a straight face as he started a political movement. Aisling with her needle and her thread and her hunger, her acceptance and her kindness and her strength. Loaned and demanded in turn. Every single damn person that he knew he’d fail if he died.

_ They weigh more _ .

When Luche opened his eyes again, it was done. He gasped for breath, unsure if he’d breathed at all in hours with the way the oxygen burned down his throat. He lurched to his feet, unsteady. Somewhere behind him Crowe was falling back and laughing and cursing, but he was already searching for Titus and Aisling. 

His irises were rimmed with lightning that he could not see. And as he took his feet his people cheered, and the sky lit up with the island’s approval. A hundred bolts of lightning and a thousand trumpets of thunder.

And Luche Lazarus, Prince of Storms, Lord of Galahd, rolled his eyes, as he pitched forward into Titus’ arms-- the large man scooping him up into his grasp. That was nice.

“Oh shut up,” he told the god in the sky, as unconsciousness claimed him.


	6. And a wedding (Aisling)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't written in precisely linear time, but it wanders together well enough I think? I'm both very proud and happy with this and incredibly dissatisfied but here it is.

The big fool proposed with a tree. Or, well. With a story, really. And it wasn’t even exactly a  _ proposal _ , but it was the only way Aisling could think of it. Since that’s what he meant by it.

The day Titus Drautos proposed to Aisling Furia he came in walking one of his family’s garula right up to her parent’s home, and he was probably lucky she was visiting or her Ma would’ve taken a hammer to him. The damn beast was dragging a tree behind it. And without a word her shepherd took off his shirt and took out an axe and cut it down.

The Furias stole one sheep, a ram. The Drautos had taken a bundle of sticks. She’d snorted, as she looked out the window, and felt something sharp and tight wrap around her heart as she told her parents to stay inside, that it was alright.

He cut from near dawn to near dusk, till the firewood was stacked up to the roof beside the forge, stacked neatly. And then he walked to the door and knocked. She’d watched as Ma and Pa answered with their best intimidating faces on and he’d smiled.

“The name’s Titus Drautos. I know there’s blood between us, and a good long list of reasons for it. But you might’ve heard I’m fond of your daughter. May I come in?”

If she hadn’t loved him already, she might have done just then.

In another way, he also proposed with a pier and a boat, to their Luche. For six months he’d worked with the fisher Granns to build up a proper set of docks in Hilden, just an hour away from his family’s lands. And a ship to keep there. He took them both out to Hilden together. 

Aisling had heard some work was going on, but she hadn’t known just how much. It looked ludicrous. The pier and the docks were almost as big as the town itself was. Titus told them everyone was calling it the Stormport, and the Drautos’ planned to trade Garula leather with Galahd. He told them it hadn’t seemed right that trade always went through the city. Besides, his cousins might like to visit the islands some day, they’d liked the story of all the monsters that roamed the islands.

One of his nieces, he said, wanted to run away and be a coeurl, and he’d rather her not have to go down to Insomnia to get started on it, when the time came. Seemed better to have a family ship to ferry her over.

If  _ he _ hadn’t loved Titus already, she was pretty sure that would have done it too.

It really wasn’t that easy. They spent nights talking about it. There were multiple marriages in Cavaugh, and some in Duscae too, but not with anyone important. And their actual legality was a sort of muddled situation. And they couldn’t do this quietly.

Luche was a prince now, by divine decree. The only royalty in Lucis besides the Caelum line. They were talking about giving Titus an actual title of some kind besides “that drautos boy who talks for people”. Aisling kept the most out of the public eye, because she seemed a ‘proper’ lady to the press and still shared her seat with her siblings. Though in function it was mostly just Tredd and herself these days.

After talking it around for a while, they’d come to the fact that, well. Mostly agnostic or not, Luche  _ was  _ the highest representative of Ramuh on Eos. He was the de facto head of the religion, which he took seriously, even if he didn’t personally practice.

There were some advantages to that.

The planning went faster than anybody but the three of them expected. Their little triad had waited long enough. Titus and Aisling talked to their cousins about wanting a house just about in between their families usual stomping grounds. Together they bought a quiet place for the three of them in Insomnia, too. A townhouse that none of them really liked, but it was a place to fall asleep in and it had a big bed.

Luche didn’t really live in Galahd, but he assured them they’d always have a roof and rooms whenever they visited. It just sort of worked out. 

They got all of that readied so they wouldn’t have to worry about it before moving on to telling anyone; deciding they’d be married on the islands, where Luche’s authority was paramount. On the beach, with a ceremony straight from Cavaugh. Something large and boisterous that fit both their peoples.

Tredd, the little imp, delivered the invitations to the council for them and she caught him whispering about the flabbergasted look on Lord Amacitia’s face to Crowe the day after. Apparently it had been something to witness. And actually funny, as opposed to a good number of the other responses.

Many of which had apparently been confused. Like they hadn’t publicly been exchanging gifts for quite a long while now and spending every moment they could beg, borrow, command, or steal together. But, well. Aisling’s opinion of most people had never been high. They’d deal with it, or they wouldn’t.

And if any were rude at the wedding, there’d be a whole herd of temperamental Furias and looming Drautos giants and bawdy Galahdians proud of their prince to put them in their place. What was a good wedding without a brawl, anyways?

When the day actually came, there were  _ four _ . Only one of which involved Insomnian lords being stupid. The most entertaining involved Lord Amacitia himself, who looked as rather overwhelmed by everything as King Regis did amused.

Two cousins from either side of things had started to go at each other, and before Amacitia realized it was quite alright he had both of them on the ground with an impressive ease and a show of strength that brought him no end of trouble for the night.

Aisling watched as Tredd flirted with him, along with more than a few members of every party involved. She might have come to his rescue, if his wife hadn’t been along and encouraging it with a wry little smile and a look in her eyes like she hadn’t enjoyed herself so much in years, seeing her husband squirm.

The ceremony itself was simple, on the surface. Aisling’s hand was bound to Luche’s with a ribbon. And Luche’s bound to Titus. Titus and Aisling dipped their hands first in the earth, and pulled up soil, and promised by it. Then they did so again in the waves. Sworn by Archaeon and Hydrean, by earth and water, land and sea.

They said the old words one after the other, guiding Luche through them, before they added their own personal promises. Words passed down, or dear, fragments of oaths both Titus and Aisling had held dear since childhood.

She and Luche met his gaze as Titus began, steady and sure. “Where my herds have roamed, and my work is done, where the grass grows, where the stream rests, where family builds a roof. These places have been my home, and are no longer. My home is in the breast of you, Luche Lazarus. My home is in the breast of you, Aisling Furia-” Titus’ voice seemed louder to her, than he’d ever spoken in council. And she could see it bounding out over the hills, with the herds his family kept. “- And so it is, from this day till the end of my days. Where my faith lives, and family treads, where knee is bent, and head bowed, these things have known my loyalty, and called themselves my duty, first and otherwise. But no longer do I have a duty beyond the pair of ye. Ever are you first in eye and deed. This I swear.”

They were surrounded by their families, by lords and ladies and a King and probably by at least one God, and that probably should have been more intimidating to her, but there didn’t seem much in the world beyond the pair of them, her boys.

She hadn’t planned to swear by her own god, today, she’d planned for it to be quiet, secret. As Furias had kept faith with the forge god, with the fallen lord of Solheim and fire, since he fell. Infernians weren’t actively persecuted anymore, but it wasn’t like they were celebrated either.

Aisling was often quiet. She didn’t wish to be, today.

“The fire of my hearth shall always be the fire of yours. What is brittle between us, shall never be abandoned, but remade, reforged. Always stronger. What is broken in me, I shall not hide, nor turn away from what is broken in you. For all that is weakness can be made strength, between those bound in hand. What is warm in me, shall keep you through the winter. What is cold in me, I shall trust you to warm. By horn and heat, by flame and song, by those things that were and those things that will be, I swear you have my heart, my faith, my fire,” and then she smirked a little, glancing between them. To the side, her family had collectively started to hold their breath she was sure as they heard her say  _ these _ words, she could practically hear the silence. The fierce smiles on Titus and Luche’s face made sure none of it mattered. “I swear them by those things. And by needle, and by crown and by crook.”

The silence extended deep and tense and a little majestic, as everyone waited for Luche to talk, and as she and Titus turned to him too, bound between them. The blonde’s lips moved once, and then he shrugged, glaring up at the overcast sky. 

“Well, six-be-damned if I’m following either of those. The old man knows, they know, none of the rest of you need to hear how much of a poet I’m  _ not,” _ he shouted, letting out a huff-

As a wave of sound burst over them, a few polite claps from their more elevated audience. And a wave of ragged cheers from family that went on and on until music started to play, until uncles and aunts dragged them to the fires set, pulled them into an awkward dance.

They kept their hands bound through dinner, laughing as Luche blushed when they had to feed him, dragged him into several more dances. They accepted many gifts and told stories, and enjoyed the brawls.

It was mortifying, though, when each and every single one of her siblings presented them with a stuffed sheep for their wedding gift. 

“We’ve got a ways to go to match a whole damn tree, Drautos,” Siobhan smirked up at them, as she left hers. Which was nearly the size of an  _ actual  _ sheep.

It probably should have gotten less mortifying, and less hilarious, as every single Furia gift from her parents to the last extended cousin, turned out to be sheep themed. Though she actually thought the baby size shepherd crooks were cute.

It wasn’t until a week later or so that she realized how glad she was, and how strangely fitting that this was how the feud had ended, or changed. Not with a fight, but a party, and a marriage and what was probably going to turn into a tradition of competitive gift giving; with even the worst of their relatives not doing too much more than grumbling.

Aisling drank more than a little and when they finally unbound their hands she danced with her cousins, and with both of Titus’ sisters, and with his mother and his father. She even dragged the king into a dance as Luche pulled Lord Amacitia into one. She laughed as Titus physically picked up her brother and tossed him into the ocean to get him to “cool off.” He didn’t really show off his strength very often, she liked it whenever she got to witness it..

Or experience it, later that night, as he carried her and Luche both over his shoulders and across the threshold -- into the house they’d claimed for their own while they were staying in Galahd.

It was a good night. And overall, a very good wedding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not included is the many times in the following months that Aisling shows up at one newspaper or another and demands corrections quietly and terrifyingly. Usually after forgetting to mention one of her husbands, or herself, in one of their articles talking about them. 
> 
> Also not featured is Luche getting perplexed at his self appointed not-quite-a-guard of various Drautos and Furia relatives that just sort of hang out around him because he's Theirs now.


End file.
